If you have a coastal location then you will probably get an enhancement in that direction. i.e. here on the east coast I receive Asia far better than I could have expected. Japan was a regular on 1350 and 1413 for the first half of the season, albeit at very weak levels. Japan has always been considered super-rare in the UK.

I didn't have any real interest in Asiatic DX because I don't understand the languages, but once I realised how great this location is for Asia I decided to get stuck in.

My favourite is North American DX and always has been, but that would be better received if I lived on the west or north coast. Even Cornwall is an excellent place for North American DX as it has the sea path, even though signals would travel through Ireland for west coast North American DX. Here, the path to Alaska, for instance, goes almost north, virtually entirely by sea path apart from a brief clip into northern Greenland, so when conditions eventually settle down, Alaska should return. 680 is the usual channel with KBRW, though I have also received KICY on 850. I have also received CFFB 1230 from Iqaluit in the North West Territories of Canada.

I forget where Dennis Tapsell lived. I think it was Brighton, but anywhere along the south coast should have great South American reception when conditions open up.

sleeper77 wrote:How odd, it was by far the strongest station from across the Atlantic I got the other night. Did you get Puerto Rico as well on 1660 kHz? That was the next best station to receive as well.

The rest of the band struggled to even show transatlantic carriers, let alone any of them reach audio level.

On the positive side, while there's no Alaskan or Pacific reception (I wish) coming through, this shows what can still get through when conditions are very poor. Radio Bahamas in particular, a rare catch at one time, can reach good levels.

I discovered this evening that I had not connected the bottom part of the flag properly and so there would have been no null when I last listened two mornings ago.

I also discovered a bad connection at the coax plug and that destroyed this morning's recordings. I have only been able to bodge this a couple of hours ago and I don't know how long it will hold, but I see the numbers have dropped nicely so, hopefully, there will be more North American reception in the coming morning.

With everything working again and my flag pointing at 300 degrees I thought I'd try some carrier monitoring and I see the first transatlantic trace appearing on 1400 at 20:48 GMT. No doubt CBG. So fingers crossed for something a little better during the coming morning.

Well this is a surprise. I just put the flag antenna back on the garden, aimed for east coast North America, and the local noise has gone. Already at 2130 I was hearing WEGP on 1390. Plenty of other carriers and bits of audio around.

Ah yes, those carriers were from nearby interference sources. Nice one! From sunrise onwards, those carriers increased in strength. I thought there was a sudden increase in North American conditions around 0900 when I saw the carriers reach what would have been audio level, only there was no audio as such, just whines and buzzes.